Playing With Fire

by Tess Gerritsen

  Two soldiers jumped out of the truck to retrieve their lost bit of cargo. One of the soldiers tossed down the stub of the cigarette he’d been smoking, crushed it with his boot, and bent down to grasp the dead man’s ankles. His partner grasped the wrists and together they swung the corpse back into the truck, as casually as if they were tossing a sack of flour. For them, a dead body tumbling from their vehicle was not even worth a pause in their conversation. And why would it be, when there were so many trucks like theirs rumbling in, day after day, each with the same terrible cargo? The butcher who hacks and saws away at countless carcasses does not think of sweet-faced lambs; he sees only meat. Just as the soldiers delivering their daily load of corpses saw only fresh fuel for the incinerator.

  And through it all, the little San Sabba orchestra kept playing. Through the roar of the trucks and the barking of dogs and the staccato of distant gunfire. Through the screams inside the oven. Most important, the screams. They played until those screams at last faded, until the trucks rumbled away empty and foul-smelling smoke billowed from the chimney. They played so they would not have to listen or think or feel, focusing on the music and only the music. Stick to the tempo! Stay together! Are we still in tune? Don’t concern yourselves with what’s happening in that building. Just keep your eyes on the notes, your bow on the strings.

  And when the day’s ordeal was over, when they were finally given leave to stop playing, they were too exhausted to rise from their chairs. They sat with instruments lowered, heads bowed, until the guards prodded them to their feet. Then back to their cell they marched in silence. Their instruments had already spoken for them, and there was nothing left to say.

  —

  Until nightfall, when they lay awake in their bunks, cloaked in semidarkness, and they talked about music. No matter where their conversation might wander, it always returned to music.

  “We weren’t together today,” said Emilio. “What kind of musicians are we when we can’t even keep to the same tempo?”

  “The drum is supposed to set the tempo. You just don’t listen to me,” said Shlomo. “You’re supposed to follow my beat.”

  “How can we, with that French horn blasting in our ears?”

  “So now it’s my fault you can’t stay together?” said Carlo.

  “No one can hear anything except your damn horn. We’re all deaf by the end of the day.”

  “I play the notes exactly as they’re written. Don’t blame me if it’s forte, forte, forte. If you can’t deal with it, then stuff rags in your ears!”

  And so the nighttime conversations always went, always about music, never about what they’d seen and heard in the courtyard that day. Never about the trucks or their cargo or the foul smoke that rose from the chimney. Never about the real reason they were marched out every day with their instruments and music stands. One must not think about those things. No, better to block out those thoughts and fret instead about their ragged tempo in the second movement, and why did Vittorio always come in before the beat, and why must they play that tiresome “Blue Danube” again and again? The same complaints one might hear in symphony halls and jazz clubs everywhere. Death might be waiting for them in the wings, but they were still musicians. That was what sustained them; it was all they had to keep the terrors at bay.

  But late in the night, when each man was alone with his thoughts, fear always crept in. How could it not, when a fresh set of screams erupted in Cell No. 1? Quick, clap your hands over your ears. Pull the blanket over your head and think about something else, anything else.

  Laura. Waiting for me.

  That was what Lorenzo always returned to: Laura, his light in the darkness. A sudden, vivid image of her bloomed in his head: Laura sitting by the window, her head bent over her cello, the sunlight gilding her hair. Her bow glides across the strings. The notes make the air hum and dust motes tremble like stars around her head. She plays a waltz, swaying to the rhythm, the cello pressed like a lover to her breast. What was that melody? He could almost, but not quite discern it. A minor key. Grace notes. An arpeggio soars in a heartbreaking crescendo. He struggled to hear it, but the music came to him in fractured bits and pieces, pierced through by screams.

  He shuddered awake, the last tendrils of the dream still wrapped around him like loving arms. He heard the morning rumble of trucks and the thud of boots marching in the courtyard. Another dawn.

  The music. What was that waltz Laura was playing in his dream? Suddenly desperate to write it down before he lost it forever, he reached under the mattress for the pencil and manuscript paper. There was barely enough light in the cell for him to see the notes he jotted onto the printed staves. He wrote quickly to get it all on paper before the melody faded. A waltz in E minor. An arpeggio up to G. He sketched out the first sixteen bars and gave a sigh of relief.

  Yes, this was the basic melody, the underlying skeleton upon which the flesh of the waltz was built. But there was more to the music, much more.

  He wrote faster and faster until his pencil flew across the paper. The melody accelerated, notes scrambling upon notes, until the staves were dense with pencil marks. He flipped the page to its blank side and he could still hear the music playing, note after note, measure after measure. He wrote so frantically that his hand cramped and his neck ached. He did not notice daylight brightening through the bars. He did not hear the creak of the bunk beds as his cellmates stirred awake. All he heard was the music, Laura’s music, heartbreaking and thrilling. Four of the measures weren’t quite right; he erased and corrected them. Now he had only two blank staves left. How did the waltz end?

  He closed his eyes and once again pictured Laura. He saw her hair aglow in a halo of sunlight. Saw her bow hover in a moment of silence, before it suddenly bites into the strings in a fierce double stop. What was earlier a frantic melody has slowed to the ponderous chords of a funeral dirge. There is no dramatic flourish at the end, no dazzling final run. There are just three final notes, muted and mournful, which fade into silence.

  He set down his pencil.

  “Lorenzo?” said Carlo. “What are you writing? What is that music?”

  Lorenzo looked up and saw the other musicians staring at him. “It’s a waltz,” he said. “For the dying.”

  18

  After the crowds and noise of San Marco, it is unnervingly quiet on the narrow street where Francesca takes me. Late at night, tourists seldom venture into this remote corner of the Castello neighborhood, and the sound of Francesca’s key grating in the door lock seems dangerously loud. We step into a dark apartment and I stand in the shadows, bewildered, as she swiftly moves around the room, closing blinds, shutting off any view of the street. Only when all the windows are covered does she dare turn on one small lamp. I had assumed this was her residence, but when I look around the room I see faded brocade and lace doilies and a frilly lampshade. These are not the usual decorative choices of a young woman.

  “It is my grandmother’s apartment,” explains Francesca. “She stays in Milan this week. We will wait here until Salvatore comes.”

  “We should call the police.” I reach into my purse, which I’ve somehow managed to hold on to during my panicked dash through Dorsoduro. As I pull out the cellphone, she grabs my wrist.

  “We cannot call the police,” she says quietly.

  “My friend has been shot! Of course we have to call them!”

  “We can’t trust them.” She takes my phone and leads me to the sofa. “Please, Mrs. Ansdell. Sit down.”

  I sink onto frayed cushions. Suddenly I can’t stop shaking and I wrap my arms around myself. Only now that I’m in a safe place can I allow myself to fall apart. I can almost feel myself cracking, disintegrating. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand why he wants me dead.”

  “I think I can explain,” says Francesca.

  “You? But you don’t even know my husband!”

  She frowns at me. “Your husband?”

  “He sent that man to find me. To kill m
e.” I wipe tears from my face. “Oh God, this can’t be happening.”

  “No, no, no. This has nothing to do with your husband.” She grabs me by the shoulders. “Listen to me. Please, listen.”

  I look up at eyes so intense I can almost feel their laser heat. She sits in a chair facing me, and for a moment she’s silent, considering her next words. With her lustrous black hair and arched eyebrows, she could be a face in a Renaissance portrait. A dark-eyed madonna with a secret to share.

  “Yesterday afternoon, after you left that piece of music with me, I made a number of phone calls,” she says. “First, to a journalist I know. He verified that Mr. Padrone was indeed murdered during what appeared to be a robbery of his antiques shop. Then I called a contact in Rome, a woman who works with Europol, the law enforcement agency for the European Union. Just an hour ago, she called me back with very disturbing information. She said that although Mr. Padrone was killed during an apparent robbery, it was a very strange robbery. Money and jewelry in the shop were left untouched. All they found disturbed were a few shelves containing old books and music, but no one knows if anything was taken. Then she told me the most alarming detail of all: how Mr. Padrone was killed. Two bullets, to the back of his head.”

  I stare at her. “That sounds like an execution.”

  Francesca gives a grim nod. “These are the same people who want you dead.” It is such a matter-of-fact statement, said in the same calm voice you might say, and that’s why the sky is blue.

  I shake my head. “No, that can’t be right. Why would anyone want me dead?”

  “The waltz. They now know you bought it from that shop. They know you’re asking about the composer and where the music came from. That’s why Mr. Padrone was killed, because he tried to find the answers for you. He spoke to the wrong people and asked some dangerous questions.”

  Incendio. It always comes back to the waltz.

  “Do you know the answer?” I ask softly. “Where does the music come from?”

  Francesca takes a deep breath, as if what she’s about to tell me is a long and difficult tale. “I believe Incendio was indeed composed by Lorenzo Todesco, who was born and lived on Calle del Forno until his arrest by the SS. He and his family—his parents, his sister and brother, were among the two hundred forty-six Jews who were deported from Venice. Of the entire Todesco family, only Marco returned alive. Marco died about ten years ago, but we have the transcript of an interview with him in our files at the museum. He described the night the family was arrested, their deportation, and the train that brought them to a death camp in Poland. He said his brother was separated from them in Trieste, after the guards identified Lorenzo as a musician.”

  “He was singled out because of that?”

  “Lorenzo was among several musicians who were selected to remain in Risiera di San Sabba, also designated Stalag 339. Originally it was used as a transit camp and detention center for Italian prisoners. But as more and more prisoners passed through Trieste, the system became overwhelmed, and San Sabba’s purpose changed. In 1944, the Germans constructed a highly efficient disposal system within the compound, to deal with all the executed prisoners.”

  “Disposal system,” I murmur. “You mean…”

  “A crematorium. It was designed by Erwin Lambert himself, the architect of gas chambers in Polish death camps. Thousands of political prisoners, partisans, and Jews were executed at San Sabba. Some died from torture. Some were shot or gassed or killed with a blow to the head from a club.” She adds, quietly: “The dead were the fortunate ones.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because after execution, the next stop was the crematorium. If by chance you survived the bullets or the club to the head or the poison gas, it meant you were fed to the ovens while still alive.” Francesca pauses, and the silence magnifies the impact of her next statement. “The screams of those being burned alive could be heard throughout the compound.”

  Horror has rendered me speechless. I don’t want to hear what comes next. I sit frozen, staring into Francesca’s eyes.

  “The shrieks were said to be so disturbing, even the Nazi commandant could not abide them. To mask that sound, as well as the sound of firing squads, he ordered music to be played in the courtyard. He appointed an Italian SS officer, a Colonel Collotti, for the task. In many ways it was a logical choice. Collotti considered himself a cultured man. He was an ardent fan of the symphony and was a collector of obscure music. He assembled an orchestra composed of prisoners. He personally selected his musicians and chose the music to be played. Among the pieces regularly performed was a waltz, which had been composed by one of the prisoner musicians. After the war, during testimony at trial, one of the prison guards described that waltz as haunting and beautiful, with a diabolical finish. It was Collotti’s favorite piece and he ordered it played again and again. For thousands of condemned prisoners who were marched to their executions, that waltz was the last music they heard.”

  “Incendio. The fire.”

  Francesca nods. “The fire of the crematorium.”

  I am shaking again, feeling so cold that my teeth chatter. Francesca disappears into the kitchen and comes out moments later with a cup of steaming tea. Even as I sip, I cannot shake off the chill. Now I know the waltz truly is haunted, by the thousands of terrified souls who heard it playing as they drew their last breaths. It is a waltz to die by.

  It takes me a long time to draw up the courage for my next question. “Do you know what happened to Lorenzo Todesco?”

  She nods. “Before they fled, the Germans blew up the crematorium. But they left behind meticulously kept records, so we know the names of the prisoners and their ultimate fates. In October of 1944, Lorenzo Todesco and his fellow musicians were marched to their own executions. Their bodies were fed to the oven.”

  I sit in silence, my head bowed in sorrow for Lorenzo, for those who died with him, for everyone who perished in the inferno of war. I mourn the music that was never written, the masterpieces that will never be heard. The only thing he left us is a single waltz, composed by a man who wrote the soundtrack to his own doom.

  “So now we know the history of Incendio,” I say softly.

  “Not entirely. There is still one burning question. How did the music find its way from the death camp of San Sabba to Mr. Padrone’s antiques shop?”

  I look up at her. “Is that important?”

  Francesca rocks forward, her eyes fever-bright. “Think about it. We know it didn’t come from the musicians, who all perished. So it must have been salvaged by one of the guards or SS officers who fled before they could be arrested.” She tilts her head, watching me. Waiting for me to make the connections.

  “It came from the estate of Giovanni Capobianco.”

  “Yes! And that name Capobianco is like a flashing red light. I asked my friend at Europol to dig into the background of this deceased Mr. Capobianco. We know he arrived in the village of Casperia around 1946. He lived there until his death fourteen years ago, at the age of ninety-four. No one in town knew where he came from, and they said he was a very private man. He and his wife, who died years before him, had three sons. When he passed away, the estate agent working for the family sold off most of his belongings, including a large number of music books and fine instruments. It was known that Mr. Capobianco was an ardent fan of the symphony. He was also a man about whom we can find absolutely no information. Until his sudden and rather mysterious appearance in 1946.”

  A collector of music. A fan of the symphony. I stare at Francesca. “He was Colonel Collotti.”

  “I’m sure of it. Collotti, like the other SS officers, fled San Sabba before the Allies arrived. Authorities searched for him, but he was never found, never brought to justice. I think he became Mr. Capobianco, lived to a peaceful old age, and went to his grave with his secret intact.” Her voice is tight with anger. “And they will do everything they can to keep it that way.”

  “He’s dead now. Why would his secret
matter to anyone?”

  “Oh, that secret matters very much to certain people. People in power. This is why Salvatore and I came to find you tonight. To warn you.” She pulls an Italian newspaper from her purse and spreads it out on the coffee table. On the front page is a photo of a handsome man in his forties, shaking hands amid an admiring crowd. “This is one of the fastest-rising stars in Italian politics and he’s expected to win the next parliamentary election. Many predict he will be our next prime minister. For years his family has groomed him for this position. They’ve pinned their hopes on him, and what he can do for their business interests. His name is Massimo Capobianco.” She looks at my startled face. “Who now appears to be the grandson of a war criminal.”

  “But he didn’t commit war crimes. His grandfather did.”

  “And did he know about his grandfather’s past? Did his family hide it all these years? That is the true scandal: how the Capobianco family, perhaps even Massimo himself, reacted to the threat of exposure.” She looks straight at me. “Consider Mr. Padrone’s murder. Perhaps it was to keep the family’s secret from ever being revealed.”

  Which makes me responsible for the old man’s death. At my request, Mr. Padrone asked the Capobianco family how their dead grandfather came to own an obscure waltz by a composer from Venice. How long did it take them to discover that L. Todesco was a Jew who’d perished at Risiera di San Sabba? That the mere existence of that music proved Mr. Capobianco had also been at that same death camp?

  “I believe this is why you were attacked,” says Francesca. “Somehow, the Capobianco family learned you are here, in Venice.”

  “Because I told them,” I whisper.

  “What?”

  “I asked the hotel clerk to call the Capobianco family about the music. I left my name and contact information.”